


Where's My Love

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, POV Magnus Bane, Post-Canon, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-03 03:01:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20257417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: “Do you hear me, Alexander,” he whispers and his fervor washes away to leave an emptiness that he doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”His breath shudders out and as his head falls, he looks down at his white suit. In this last regard, he’d followed shadowhunter custom and it makes nausea build sickeningly fast. His only thought is,This isn’t supposed to be happening.We were supposed to have more time.





	Where's My Love

He stands tall and the tension in his spine makes him wonder just how long he has before his back breaks.

He stands, staring straight ahead. He doesn’t feel the stares that land on him, a mix of worry and sympathy and distrust.

In the front row, his eyes don’t leave the altar where his love lies under a snowy white sheet. Distantly, he listens to the Silent Brother extol his husband’s innumerable praises.

He bites back a sob until his mouth fills with blood. They could have an eternity and it still wouldn't be enough time to list Alec’s best qualities, his endless successes.

Blinking slowly, he doesn’t feel his glamour disintegrate. Even if he did, he wouldn’t mind. Not today. Alec had always loved his mark and though Magnus never understood it, he finds it only appropriate to give his husband this final gift.

Instead of the icy chill of the Institute, his gaze grow unseeing as he replays a thousand memories in flashes that threaten to bring him to his knees.

Waking up to his love bathed in the warmth of a golden morning. Dancing on the balcony, laughing and tipsy from a bottle of wine. Arguing over what to make for dinner before deciding to portal to Marrakech or Athens or Chicago.

Looking up to see the stranger who saved his life toss a blade in the air with the confidence born of a lifetime at battle. Looking down an aisle with his heart in his hands and stubborn, stupid hope in his heart. Looking up after revealing his biggest insecurities, his most pervasive vulnerability only to be met with fierce eyes and, _There is nothing ugly about you_.

Magnus doesn’t notice that the hall empties at first but once he does he takes a shaky breath and a halting step toward Alec. There had been some pushback from Clave officials who hadn’t wanted a downworlder at Alec’s funeral. Clinging stubbornly to tradition, they’d made their distaste apparent.

He doesn’t even remember what he’d said only that he’d felt the fire of a thousand suns licking up his spine, a hairsbreadth from unleashing on the whole goddamn world. He’d been granted permission to attend his own husband’s funeral and the depth of the slight still hasn’t penetrated through the fog he’s been living in for the past six days.

Left alone now, he nears his husband’s body. As he does, he feels his face crumble, distorting until his expression betrays his overwhelming grief and anger, all of it overlaid with a lifetime’s worth of love.

His breath is harsh in the dead silence. Reaching out, he clinically catalogs his shaking hands, his wedding ring gleaming dully in the low light. His voice is a harsh whisper that’s scraped from his throat, leaves it aching. “You weren’t supposed to leave me,” he says fiercely. “I was supposed to have years, decades, a lifetime.”

As he rests his hands on Alec’s chest, he’s struck by the stillness. It makes something ugly crawl through him, the knowledge that this is his life-- this is the rest of his fucking life and it’s worse than he could’ve ever imagined.

He’d known Alec would ruin him but by God, not even he had known the devastation waiting for him at the end of his husband’s life.

“Do you hear me, Alexander,” he whispers and his fervor washes away to leave an emptiness that he doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”

His breath shudders out and as his head falls, he looks down at his white suit. In this last regard, he’d followed shadowhunter custom and it makes nausea build sickeningly fast. His only thought is, _This isn’t supposed to be happening_.

_We were supposed to have more time_.

Closing his eyes, Magnus works on his breathing for long minutes. He can’t give into the roiling wave of grief that’s perilously close to the surface, knows that if he does, he’ll destroy everything until the world is as broken and hopeless as he feels right now.

When he opens his eyes, they fall to his love. Sweeping over the figure under the sheet, Magnus sears this moment unto his memory, the most wrenching end to a story for the ages.

Leaning over his husband, Magnus closes the distance between them one last time. He kisses his husband, his darling Alexander, one last time, the sheet an unforgivable barrier between them. Coldness seeps through the sheet and Magnus pulls back, laying his head on Alec’s shoulder. His own shake as he tries to get a grip.

Raising up, he lays an achingly gentle hand over Alec’s cheek. “Rest well, my darling,” he whispers. “I forgive you and I love you and I promise that I will never leave you, that I’ll carry you in my heart until the day that I die.”

He squeezes his eyes shut after the words leave him and then all of a sudden it’s too much and he stumbles back, his hand falling gracelessly from Alec’s body. He turns around, overwhelmed, and it takes all of his power to summon a portal.

He doesn’t look back as he falls through, his only thought, _Save me_.

Landing in their living room, the portal closes and the silence is insufferable. Magnus stills as it washes over him and in the emptiness, he can almost hear Alec grumbling at the coffeemaker, half asleep and squinting at the offensive sunlight.

He hears his husband’s laughter as he pulls him toward the bedroom with those irresistible eyes.

He sees the ghost of them wandering through every inch of the space and his legs give out. He lands on the floor hard but doesn’t feel the force ricochet through his body. He feels his magic clawing to get out and he hasn’t felt this out of control in centuries.

On his knees, he stares down at his hands with an indifferent gaze before he’s bending over and unleashing all of his grief and rage and despair in a scream that even to his ears sounds inhuman, holding the world's torment.

His nails dig into the wood of the floor and the tension in his spine, dripping into every joint and bone is punishing and unforgiving and he snaps.

Lashing out, his magic rips through the loft, overturning furniture and burning anything in its path.

Magnus doesn’t know how long he spends hunched over the floor only that by the time he comes back to himself, the tears are endless and he half feels like he’s drowning, his throat aching and raw.

Climbing unsteadily to his feet, he takes in the destruction of his loft with blank eyes. Shrugging unsteadily, he stumbles to his drink cart and rips the stopper out of his decanter of whiskey. Not taking the time to reach for the glass, he instead takes a swig straight from the crystal.

He’s three quarters through it when he opens bleary, sore eyes to see the most welcome sight in the world.

His husband, his eternal love.

“Alexander,” he breathes and he’s sloppy as he straightens, blinking furiously to rid himself of the double vision.

His husband, dark hair messy and eyes gently chastising. “You’re a mess, babe.”

Sobbing out a breath, Magnus closes his eyes and feels the ghost of Alec’s fingers over his cheek. “Oh, love, what else could you expect? I’ve always known I’d be a mess without you.”

“Well then,” he hears his husband drawl and it sinks into him, the warmth and fondness in his tone. “It’s a good thing I’ll always be with you, isn’t it?”

Magnus smiles, doesn’t hear the slur in his voice when he replies, “Darling, nothing could make me happier.”

Jarring awake, a wave of nausea consumes Magnus and he doubles over from where he’d passed out in a chair sometime before dawn, throwing up on a priceless rug he’d purchased two centuries ago. Wiping an inelegant hand over his mouth, his eyes frantically scan the loft but while he hears the distant sound of his husband’s voice, the morning light shows that it was nothing but a drunk’s delusion.

The pain is unimaginably worse for the brief flare of hope that had ignited through him.

With a careless wave of his hand, Magnus cleans the floor as he takes in the previous night’s devastation.

Blinking slowly, he dismisses the mess his magic had made and stands on unsteady feet. He makes it to a wall before another wave of sickness laps over him and he throws out a hand until he can lean against rough brick. Looking over idly, grief crashes through him yet again at the sight of his wedding ring.

Swallowing hard, Magnus closes his hand into a fist and pushes off the wall, making his way to the bathroom where he takes a shower that makes him feel at least half human.

Still. He can’t escape the feeling of relief he’d felt for those few hours he’d been asleep. Hair still wet and tying a robe around him with haphazard grace, Magnus pads back to his drink cart that looks so damned welcomed in the daylight, a beacon of hope and possibility.

Not seeing anything stronger than wine, he summons a bottle of vodka and twists it open viciously. Nausea surges up but Magnus swallows it down hard before he brings the bottle up to his lips. 

His only thought is that if he can only see Alec in his dreams than by God, he doesn’t ever want to wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


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